1. Technical Field
This disclosure relates to an image processing apparatus, an image processing method, and an image processing system, and more specifically to an image processing apparatus, an image processing method, and an image processing system that read a document subjected to a color material reduction process.
2. Related Art
Some image processing apparatuses output an image after performing a color material reduction process in a toner save mode, for example, to save toner. In the toner save mode, an image processing apparatus performs halftone processing on image data to be output, in which respective output values of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK) are reduced. The image processing apparatus may also provide an image to be output on a recording medium with information indicating whether or not the image is output in the toner save mode so as to make application or non-application of the toner save mode visibly recognizable.
If such a recording medium with the image output in the toner save mode is used as a document for copying, however, the reduction in density of text on the document and the halftone processing performed on the document may result in an error, such as an image portion that should be recognized as black text being identified and processed not as black text but as graphics, or being only partially recognized as black text and partially subjected to graphics processing or other processing, thereby outputting a defective image, for example. Further, if the recording medium with the image output in the toner save mode is used as a document for scanning and scanned image data is stored in an internal hard disk drive (HDD) of the image processing apparatus or in a content management system on a network, for example, data of text and graphics on the document is stored in low density. Although such a document may be subjected to gamma correction in the copying or scanning process, this approach requires a user to perform the adjustment and subsequent resetting to previous density values, which may be challenging to the user.
When the recording medium with the image output after being subjected to the color material reduction process in the toner save mode or the like is used as a document for copying or scanning, therefore, it is desirable to cancel effects of the color material reduction process on the output image and read an image with image characteristics similar to those of the image of an original document.